Books & Articles

The Writer’s Guide to Characterization: Archetypes and Other Elements of Dynamic Character Development Writers Digest Books (Soft Cover & kindle/Nook) Featured in display cases in 600 B&N bookstores for NaNoWriMo

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In this comprehensive guide, author Victoria Lynn Schmidt examines cross-cultural archetypes to illustrate how they can make your work more powerful and compelling. Plus, you’ll learn how to draw from Jungian psychology to add complexity and believability to your characters:

40 lessons on character development (with examples from well-known films and novels) that you can apply to your own work

Questionnaires and exercises to help you select male and female archetypes and adapt them to your story

15 classic animal archetypes (including the coyote, snake, tiger, and butterfly) you can use to build convincing character profiles

Victoria is featured in Creating Characters due out in December 2014. .

Book in a Month Writers Digest Books (Spiral Bound & Kindle/Nook) Turned into a magazine available on newsstands worldwide and was featured in display cases in 600 B&N bookstores for NaNoWriMo.

What Can You Accomplish in 30 Days? If you could put away all of your excuses just for a month, could you write a book? With a structured plan and a focused goal, yes, you can!Using a combination of flexible weekly schedules, focused instruction, and detailed worksheets, author Victoria Schmidt leads you through a proven 30-day novel-writing system without the intimidation factor. Book in a Month shows you how to:

Set realistic goals and monitor your progress

Manage your time so that your writing life has room to flourish

Select a story topic that will continue to inspire you throughout the writing process

Quickly outline your entire story so that you have a clear idea of how your plot and characters are going to develop before you start writing

Draft each act of your story by focusing on specific turning points

Keep track of the areas you want to revise without losing your momentum in the middle of your story

Story Structure Architect is your comprehensive reference to the classic recurring story structures used by every great author throughout the ages. You’ll find master models for characters, plots, and complication motifs, along with guidelines for combining them to create unique short stories, novels, scripts, or plays. You’ll also learn how to:

Build compelling stories that don’t get bogged down in the middle

Select character journeys and create conflicts

Devise subplots and plan dramatic situations

Develop the supporting characters you need to make your story work

Especially featured are the standard dramatic situations inspire by Georges Polti’s well-known 19th century work, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. But author Victoria Schmidt puts a 21st-century spin on these timeless classics and offers fifty-five situations to inspire your creativity and allow you even more writing freedom. Story Structure Architect will give you the mold and then help you break it.

Create unforgettable characters your readers will love! In print for over 13 years!

Want to make your characters and their stories more compelling, complex, and original than ever before? 45 Master Characters is here to help you explore the most common male and female archetypes–the mythic, cross-cultural models from which all characters originate.

Explore a wide variety of character profiles including heroes, villains, and supporting characters.

Learn how to use archetypes as foundations for your own unique characters

Examine the mythic journeys of heroes and heroines–the progression of events upon which each archetype’s character arc develops–and learn how to use them to enhance your story.